SMTP2GO: The SendGrid Alternative With a Free Plan That Never Expires!

If you relied on SendGrid’s free tier for application emails, the retirement of that plan likely left you searching for a stable, cost-effective replacement. You still need dependable delivery for password resets, order confirmations, and product notifications, but you also want a free option that is more than a short trial. That is exactly where SMTP2GO fits. Our free plan is built for developers who value reliability, straightforward limits, and a clear path to scale when the time is right. 🥳

This guide explains how SMTP2GO’s free plan works, what to expect around sender verification and analytics, which limitations matter for engineering teams, and how upgrading unlocks more capacity and features.

SMTP2GO’s Forever-Free Plan at a Glance

SMTP2GO offers a free plan that never expires. You can keep it as long as you need it.

• Monthly sending limit of 1,000 emails

• Daily cap of 200 emails

• No credit card required to start

• Ideal for low-volume production traffic, staging environments, QA, hackathon projects, and proof-of-concept apps

The benefit is predictability. Rather than a countdown trial that forces an upgrade on a deadline, you get a stable free tier that supports ongoing low-volume sending. If you later outgrow the cap, upgrading is seamless and does not require code changes.

How the Free Plan Handles Usage

Understanding how caps behave helps you plan around traffic spikes and monthly cycles.

• Daily cap, 200 emails. If you exceed the daily allowance, additional emails are queued and will send when capacity allows, typically as the next day’s allocation becomes available. You do not need to resubmit those messages.

• Monthly cap, 1,000 emails. Once you hit the monthly limit, sending stops until the cycle resets. New send attempts beyond the 1,000 limit are rejected rather than queued. This hard stop prevents silent backlog growth and makes usage obvious to your team.

• Scaling up. Any paid plan removes daily limits, increases your monthly quota, and unlocks more features. You keep the same SMTP credentials and API keys, which means no refactor is required.

For many developers, the free plan comfortably supports transactional trickles, internal tools, and small user bases. When you begin nudging into the limits, that is the signal to step up to a paid tier.

Sender Verification, Authentication, and Safe Defaults

Strong deliverability starts with identity. SMTP2GO requires you to verify the sender you will use, which protects both you and the ecosystem.

• Verify a domain or a single email. Verifying a domain lets you authenticate with SPF and DKIM, and it covers all matching From addresses. Verifying a single email is useful for quick tests or narrow use cases.

• Unverified throttling. Until a sender domain or address is verified, sending is capped at a minimal rate suitable for light testing. Verification removes this temporary restriction and allows you to use the full daily and monthly allowances.

• Multiple senders on free. The free plan allows up to five sender domains or individual addresses. This is useful if you manage a couple of side projects, or if you want to separate dev and prod identities without upgrading.

These safeguards are there to keep sender reputation high. The outcome is predictable inbox placement for your legitimate traffic.

Deliverability You Can Trust

Delivery is table stakes, but consistent inbox placement is what your users experience. SMTP2GO focuses on the details that move the needle for developers who care about outcomes, not just send attempts.

• Authenticated sending by default. When you verify a domain, you send with DKIM and SPF configured the right way, which aligns with modern mailbox provider expectations.

• Reputation management that scales. Proactive monitoring of IP reputation, bounce rates, and spam signals helps keep shared infrastructure healthy, which benefits everyone on the platform.

• Clear, recent activity logs. Even on the free plan, you see five days of email activity, including deliveries, bounces, spam reports, opens, clicks, and unsubscribes. That window is enough to validate integrations, verify user flows, and diagnose recent issues. Paid plans extend activity retention to 30 days by default, with options for longer storage if you need audits or trend analysis.

Deliverability is a system, not a switch. SMTP2GO handles the heavy lifting at the infrastructure layer, while giving you visibility into message-level outcomes.

What Developers Care About Day One

When you migrate from another provider’s free tier, you want to confirm that essentials are covered without surprises. Here is what technical teams usually ask first.

• SMTP and API flexibility. Use SMTP credentials for quick drop-in compatibility, or the HTTP API when you want structured responses, payload validation, and idempotency patterns.

• Event visibility. Get feedback on bounces and complaints, confirm deliveries, and track opens and clicks for relevant messages. Use these signals to improve list quality and user experience.

• Reasonable rate behavior. Free plan queuing on daily overage, hard stop on monthly overage, and immediate resume on quota reset. No out-of-band throttles that are hard to predict.

• Simple environment parity. Verify separate senders for staging and production, keep credentials unique per environment, and use the same integration approach across both.

If your mental model is “I want to send safely, see what happened, and scale when I am ready,” the free plan aligns well with that workflow.

Free Plan Limitations To Factor Into Your Architecture

Every free tier needs guardrails. These are the limits that matter most to engineering teams.

• Support access. Free accounts have ticket-based support. You can submit issues and get help, but live chat and phone support are reserved for paid plans. This is workable for non-urgent questions, and it provides a clear reason to upgrade if you need real-time assistance.

• Team members. The free plan allows two login users. This suits a solo developer plus a collaborator. Larger teams will want a paid plan, which allows unlimited team members.

• Webhooks. Free accounts can configure one webhook endpoint. If you route all events to a single service, you are covered. If you split events by application or need separate endpoints for analytics and alerting, paid plans support more.

• Unavailable features on free. Some features are reserved for paid tiers, including SMS messaging, email archiving, scheduled reports, subaccounts, advanced authentication options, and certain pre-send testing tools. None of these are required to send authenticated email, but they become valuable as your use cases mature.

These constraints keep the free plan focused on core delivery while ensuring the ecosystem remains robust. If you plan for them early, you can migrate cleanly and avoid rework.

When To Move From Free To Paid

A good rule of thumb is to upgrade when capacity or collaboration friction begins to show up in your metrics or workflows.

• You regularly approach 1,000 emails per month. Hitting a hard stop mid-month is noise for your team and your users. A paid plan removes the daily cap and increases your monthly volume.

• You need burst sending. For product announcements, onboarding campaigns, or seasonal surges, a paid tier supports higher hourly throughput without daily ceilings.

• You need longer analytics windows. If five days of activity is not enough to correlate delivery changes with code releases or list hygiene work, 30 days on paid plans provide far more context.

• Your team is growing. Unlimited team members on paid plans simplify access management, auditability, and operational handoffs.

• You want advanced features. Subaccounts for multi-app separation, multiple webhooks, scheduled reports, and other enterprise conveniences are available once you upgrade.

Upgrading does not change your integration. SMTP credentials and API keys remain valid, your verified senders stay intact, and your pipeline continues to run. You gain capacity and features, not complexity.

Migration Tips For Former SendGrid Free Users

You do not need a full implementation guide to make smart early decisions. Use this short checklist to reduce friction.

1. Inventory your senders. List all From addresses and domains your apps use. Decide whether to verify a domain, which covers many addresses, or verify a small set of individual emails for quick wins.

2. Segment environments. Create separate credentials for staging and production. Verify distinct senders if you want to enforce isolation in logs and policy.

3. Map event consumption. If you rely on webhooks, plan for a single endpoint on the free plan. If you need multiple streams, consider a lightweight fan-out service or upgrade to support more destinations.

4. Set usage alerts. Add basic monitoring around daily and monthly counts. Treat approaching limits as an operational event, and schedule upgrades before you hit the ceiling.

5. Reconfirm authentication. After verification, send a small batch to validate DKIM alignment, SPF pass, and expected routing. Check activity logs and confirm open and click tracking if you use them.

6. Audit list hygiene. If you are moving an existing list, use bounces and complaints to prune bad addresses early. Healthy lists improve deliverability across every provider.

This is the minimum viable plan for a safe migration. It keeps your users protected from sudden delivery changes, and it keeps your team focused on code, not firefighting.

Answers to Common Questions

Is SMTP2GO’s free plan a time-boxed trial?
No. The free plan does not expire. You can stay on it as long as your needs fit within the 1,000 emails per month and 200 emails per day limits.

What happens if I send more than 200 emails in a day on the free plan?
Excess messages are queued and will send when capacity is available. You do not need to retry them manually.

What happens after 1,000 emails in a month?
Sending is paused for the remainder of the cycle. Additional attempts are rejected until the monthly counter resets.

Do I need to verify my sender to send?
Yes. Verifying a domain or a single email address is required for normal sending. Until you verify, temporary throttles apply that are designed only for light testing.

Can I use multiple senders on the free plan?
Yes. You can verify up to five domains or individual addresses on a free account.

What do I get for reporting on the free plan?
You get five days of activity, including deliveries, opens, clicks, bounces, spam reports, and unsubscribes. Paid plans extend activity retention to 30 days, with longer options available.

Does upgrading require code changes?
No. Your SMTP settings and API keys remain the same. Upgrading increases capacity and unlocks features. Your integration continues as is.

Can I invite my team?
Yes. The free plan supports two login users. Paid plans allow unlimited team members.

Are webhooks available on the free plan?
Yes. You can configure one webhook endpoint on the free plan. Paid plans allow more endpoints.

Why Developers Choose SMTP2GO As a SendGrid Alternative

Migrating email infrastructure is rarely anybody’s favorite task. The friction often comes from unclear limits, inconsistent deliverability, and support that is hard to reach. SMTP2GO is designed to make the boring parts predictable, so your team can stay focused on your product.

• Predictable free tier. No timers, clear limits, clean behavior at the edge cases, and an easy upgrade path.

• Deliverability focus. Authentication, reputation management, and conservative defaults protect your inbox placement.

• Actionable visibility. Message-level activity with the right retention windows for each tier.

• Developer friendly. Straightforward SMTP and API options, sensible webhook behavior, and a dashboard that surfaces the signals you need.

• Support that scales. Ticket support on free, live chat and phone on paid, all backed by a team that understands production realities.

If you need a reliable SendGrid alternative for free email sending, the forever-free SMTP2GO plan gives you exactly that. Start small without a deadline, ship with confidence, and scale when your usage or team requires it.

The Bottom Line

The end of a free plan at SendGrid provider does not have to mean the end of free sending for your application. SMTP2GO gives developers a stable, always-free option that prioritizes deliverability, transparency, and practical limits. You can integrate quickly, verify your sender identity, and send authenticated email with clear analytics. When your needs grow, you can upgrade in place, keep your existing integration, and unlock more capacity, collaboration, and features.

Choose SMTP2GO as your SendGrid alternative, keep your users informed with timely email, and give your team an email platform that works the way engineers expect it to work.